As teachers across Blair County prepare for the beginning of the school year, some decorate their classrooms and others review lesson plans, while they all brace for the journey ahead.

A welcoming environment

As an elementary education veteran who has spent 26 years teaching first and second graders at Myers Elementary, Coleman knows that starting the year off on the right foot is crucial.

Creating a warm and welcoming environment helps young students feel comfortable in the classroom setting, Coleman said, with decor decisions playing a huge role.

Altoona Area Junior High School American History teacher Beth Bronson adjusts items in her college football-themed classroom before the start of the school year. Bronson chooses a different theme each year to decorate her room. Courtesy photo

“I can’t prepare mentally until my physical room is ready,” Coleman said.

Her classroom is completely dressed in rainbow colors, with vibrant paper cutouts and charts filling seemingly every inch of available wall space.

“I go with whatever makes me feel good, but not too much stuff,” she said.

Coleman is careful to not make her classroom too much of a fun house, noting that there is a fine line between being colorful and overly distracting for the students.

Students who enjoy coming to class tend to be more engaged in the curriculum, Coleman said, with high student engagement in the curriculum a good indicator of overall academic performance.

Frankstown Elementary School first grade team members (from left) Jessica Zorger, Greta Swope, Lexi Eckenrode and Elizabeth Fogal meet in Fogal’s classroom on Wednesday to map out a schedule for the school year. Mirror photo by Cynthia Wise

First and second grade are the “critical grade levels” for fostering a student’s love for learning and setting them up for future academic success, so Coleman takes her job seriously.

“It’s a big transition,” she said.

Beyond decorating her room, Coleman starts reviewing her lesson plans in early July to ensure her materials are up-to-date and engaging for her students.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much work goes into getting ready for the school year, especially at an elementary school,” she said.

Teachers constantly work to improve their lesson plans, classroom layout and overall approach in connecting with students, she said, always striving to better themselves as educators.

“I love what I do,” Coleman said.

Emily Perry is a newly hired second grade teacher at the elementary school, who applied for a full-time position after having a positive student teaching experience at Myers during her time at Penn State Altoona in 2023-24.

“I got hired back in June, and as soon as we could get into our classrooms, I did … I started organizing books and cabinets,” Perry said.

Perry used Canva to design cutouts to create a lush garden-themed, pink and green classroom that she hopes will be inviting and fun for her students.

“It sets up the foundation for a great year,” she said.

‘A little over the top’

Altoona Area Junior High social studies teacher Beth Bronson goes “a little over the top” decorating her eighth grade classroom ahead of every school year, choosing a new theme each time.

This year, Bronson picked college football, while in previous years she has gone with themes like “The Wizard of Oz” and “Harry Potter.”

All her decorations are in service of enabling an “inviting, fun energy” for her students starting on day one, Bronson said.

Bronson starts getting ready in early August, decorating and reevaluating her lesson plans from the previous year.

Rotating different in-class activities each year helps keep the curriculum fresh, she said, and helps it from feeling repetitive over time.

Middle school students, especially eighth graders, are a distinctly challenging age group to teach, Bronson said.

“They’re figuring themselves out and maturing,” she said. “It’s very challenging.”

Since eighth graders can often get distracted with events in their social lives, Bronson said it’s essential to set clear expectations and build a bond with them in order to keep them focused and on track academically.

To this end, it’s equally as important to maintain open lines of communication with parents, she said, as their support can help reinforce what Bronson is doing in the classroom.

“You have to change what you’re doing as a teacher based on what’s sitting right in front of you,” she said, noting that students behave and learn differently than when she began her career almost 27 years ago.

Students these days generally have a shorter attention span and need a more engaging approach, which is one of the biggest changes she has seen over time, Bronson said.

Teachers often spend the weeks leading up to the first day of school familiarizing themselves with the latest technology used in the classroom, which can include laptops, tablets and AI programs, and catching up with state-mandated teacher training.

“Kids learn in different ways and you have to adapt,” Bronson said.

‘Focused on learning’

According to Claysburg-Kimmel High School math teacher Matt Hall, preparing his classroom for the start of the school year is key to keeping his students “focused on the learning.”

This can be achieved by strategically using color and informative graphics placed around the room.

“You have to make the room engaging, somewhere that the kids want to be; there’s a lot of different things that pull attention and you want to make it a welcoming environment,” according to finance teacher Matt Claar.

Without a layer of decorations, classrooms can often look “institutional,” leading to a dreary, uninspiring atmosphere, Claar said.

“If you brighten it up, liven it up, maybe add a rug or some nice lighting, it’ll help calm the kids down and get them ready for the learning process,” he said.

Hall said that one of the first grade teachers he managed during his time serving as principal at Claysburg-Kimmel Elementary before returning to the high school level would decorate her classroom like an African safari, much to the amusement of her students.

“It’s whatever will perk the students’ interest when they walk into the classroom,” Hall said, “whether it’s in the elementary school or … at the high school, it’s what grabs their attention.”

According to Hall, taking time to thoroughly review all of his lesson plans and classroom materials is one of the best ways to prepare himself mentally.

“Everyone thinks teachers take the summer off, but (we are) in here getting ready, whether it’s getting copies ready for the students or getting homeroom desks ready with their schedules,” he said.

Doing all of this work in advance is imperative.

“There’s a lot of behind the scenes work and a lot of organization in being prepared because, once the first day of school hits, you won’t have much time to organize anything outside of explaining classroom rules and expectations,” Hall said.

Tech center up to speed

Getting ready for the school year looks a bit different at the Greater Altoona Career & Technology Center, fitting its status as the county’s only

publicly-funded vocational school.

According to Principal Lindsay Miksich, since all of the GACTC’s faculty come directly from working in the industry to teaching, administrators spend a lot of time catching them up to speed ahead of the coming school year.

“We do an orientation for all the new teachers and new hires,” Miksich said, which helps familiarize the new staff with both the intricacies of CTC education and the sprawling Fourth Avenue building.

Miksich runs the week-long program alongside instructional coach Nicole Beauchamp, who plays a vital role in acclimating the freshly minted teachers over a two-year program.

This program begins the summer ahead of the teacher’s first year at the GACTC.

“(We discuss) classroom management, lesson planning, curriculum mapping, all of the educational jargon someone who’s ‘traditionally’ trained would have learned in college,” Beauchamp said. “We give them a cursory glance at first, then we work on these skills throughout the year.”

Like the majority of public schools, the GACTC pairs newly hired teachers with a more experienced mentor teacher, to give them a first point of contact for advice and classroom support, Miksich said.

Miksich stressed that, while the GACTC is not a “traditional” secondary educational institute like the nearby Altoona Area High School, they are as “real,” qualified and capable as their non-CTC counterparts.

Since career and tech center education is so focused on imparting practical, hands-on skills, faculty recruited directly from the field they intend to teach come with an inherent depth of necessary experience.

“They’re industry experts, and they have alternative pathways to becoming a certified teacher,” Miksich said.

Excited to learn

Entering her second year of teaching at Frankstown Elementary School, teacher Taylor Ostinowsky said she’s incredibly excited to get started and to meet her new class.

Ostinowsky has her second grade classroom decorated like a “rainbow,” with a wild compliment of bright colors.

She pairs the vibrant hues and polka dots with inspiring posters, reminding her students to “never give up,” and that “this is our happy place.”

One of her favorite pieces of decor is the “growth mindset board,” where Ostinowsky has placed messages encouraging her students to approach challenges with an optimistic, curious mindset, instead of feeling discouraged when the task at hand is difficult.

This decor is intentionally designed to foster a “fun, welcoming atmosphere” on the first day of school, Ostinowsky said, when starting off the year on a positive note is critically important.

According to Ostinowsky, by clearly setting her expectations and daily routines from the starting gun, she can set her students up for a productive year.

And while setting up her classroom and reviewing her lesson plans can help quell her first-day anxiety, it’s not foolproof.

Ostinowsky said that even teachers can feel apprehensive about the start of the school year.

“It’s OK to admit to yourself that you’re a little bit nervous too,” Ostinowsky said, “and then you can say ‘OK, now I’m ready to do this.'”

Mirror Staff Writer Conner Goetz is at 814-946-7535.